


Returning

by LolaBleu



Category: Divergent Series - Veronica Roth
Genre: Allegiant Alternate Ending, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-12-07
Updated: 2014-04-27
Packaged: 2018-01-03 22:33:43
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1073834
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LolaBleu/pseuds/LolaBleu
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Coming home to someone is many things. It is a choice, a promise, a declaration. It is a return, not as a person to a place, but as oneself to another. It is one individual saying to another: 'You are the one I choose'. *Allegiant alternate-ending*</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> The nexus of this story really came from A.) my loathing of Allegiant, and B.) reading the epilogue and pondering how things would be different if Tris had survived David shooting her. So this story starts at the beginning of the epilogue and borrows dialogue (though I do trade some of it between characters, purposefully), and then deviates more and more until it is it's own story.
> 
> And this story is set up a little different from my others. For one thing, even though theprologue is written in Tobias' POV, the rest of the story will be 3rd person. For another thing, in the chronology of this story, this should be the epilogue since it falls after the events of the story proper. The reason I've set it up this way is... well, frankly I like telling stories like this, and just because you knows the ends, doesn't mean you can guess the means of getting there, and with this story in particular, there's some real shit Tris and Tobias have to go through to get here, where things are pretty good between them (I've said on my Tumblr this is the darkest thing I've written for Fourtris and I'm not lying). Oh, and this chapter is not very smutty, but the following chapters will be (and there will be two of them - double trouble!).
> 
> As always you can find me on Tumblr at BleuWrites if you're feeling curious or chatty or whatever

 

  **Coming home to someone is many things. It is a literal action, an abstract idea, a physical feeling. It is more than the sound of the key turning in the door and the voice that calls from the porch. It is a choice, a promise, a declaration. It is a return, not as a person to a place, but as oneself to another. It is one individual saying to another:** **'You are the one I choose'.**

* * *

 

The roads leading outside Amity, to the place where our world meets the outside world are well worn now from the frequent coming and going of people now that Chicago is an open city. Evelyn waits at the side of the abandoned train tracks where we were met by Amar; where the illusion of our factioned world shattered like a pane of glass.

Evelyn waves when I get close enough, as if I could miss her in the swath of open space surrounding the tracks. She greets me with a kiss when she climbs into the truck, and I let her. I let the small smile it coaxes from me stay there too. "Welcome back," I offer.

It's been two years since she left the city, originally never to return, but so much has changed in Chicago that I don't see the harm in her coming back, and neither does she. That's not to say everyone is enthusiastic about it - Johanna isn't, for one -, but ultimately she let the decision rest with me. And the time away has done Evelyn good. She looks younger; her face is fuller, her smile wider.

When Evelyn left, I left with her, living up to the promise - or I guess, threat, really -, I made Tris after Shauna was shot, that if she recklessly risked her life again her and I were through. It was selfish and cruel to do, especially as she was recovering from near fatal gunshot wounds at the time, but I couldn't stay in the same city as her and live with not having her. I couldn't do it. So I ran away, like a coward.

Maybe it was cowardly of me to come back too, Evelyn thought so at the time. Then again she's always had trouble separating her relationship with Marcus from my relationship with Tris. Consequently, we did not part on the best of terms and it's been more than a year and half since I've seen her. There were other things too; we were both trying to figure out how to be a family again and we both made mistakes. We have kept in contact though, and having some physical distance between us allowed us to more comfortably bridge the emotion distance, as counterintuitive as it seems.

"Thank you for having me back. And thank you for letting me be a part of this today," she murmurs. Even though her voice is subdued I can tell how much it means to her to be home, on this of all days.

I reach out and squeeze her hand quickly, reassuring her.

"You know, today would be Choosing Day if the factions still existed," she says contemplatively, watching the farmland slip by as we drive. The crops that were once isolated to the area around Amity have spread; even in the city vacant lots have been turned into community gardens to help feed the rapidly expanding population.

"I know."

"I'm glad you'll never have to face that, with Natalie," she says slowly, like she's testing the way the name feels on her tongue. "It was… cruel, splitting families up that way."

"Every child has to strike out on their own at some point," I say noncommittally. "Luckily Tris and I don't have to worry about that for a while, considering Natalie's turning one today."

"What's she like, your daughter?"

I smile widely. "A handful, to be honest; more so everyday now that she's gotten a good grip on walking."

She laughs softly. "They always are at that age. It's one of the most amazing and terrifying things when they start exploring the world on their own, oblivious to what's safe and what isn't. Is she talking yet?"

"Still babbling, mostly, but she tries to mimic us a lot."

The fence looms up in the distance, ever present, but forever changed now that the gates hang open widely, unguarded. "What's it like, living without the Factions?" she asks as we pass through.

"Very ordinary," I say with a smile. "You'll love it."

 

 

 

xxxx

"My neighbor is a history expert, he came from the Fringe, and according to him this building was constructed before the Purity War," I say as I grab Evelyn's bags and lead her into the building she'll call home as long as she stays here; it's only a five minute walk from my own apartment. "He calls Chicago the 'fourth city' - because it was destroyed by a fire ages ago, and then again by the Purity War, and now we're on the fourth attempt at settlement here."

"The fourth city. I like it," Evelyn says as pass into the lobby, the phrase  _Peace Be With You_  inscribed in the marble lintel over the doors.

The building is a shadow of it's former grandeur. The fountain at the top of the main staircase sits dry and unused, and the frescos painted on the walls and ceilings are faded where they haven't completely crumbled to dust, but time could not completely diminish it's beauty, only dim it. Like Evelyn it's come alive again in the last few years.

"You're only a few blocks away from us, so anytime you want to come over," I offer, open-ended.

"I wouldn't want to intrude…" she mutters, trailing off as we reach the door of her apartment. It's on a lower floor, mercifully, since the elevators are still being repaired and I'm still not fond of small spaces, regardless.

"You won't." We can't stay distant forever, and now that we've healed as much as we can apart, it's time to bridge the final gap. "Natalie and Tris take a nap around 3 o'clock most days, but other than that, you're welcome anytime," I shrug.

"Are you sure about that?" she asks, her voice carrying the hard edge it so often does when Tris enters our conversation.

"Yes," I say firmly, setting her bags down in the small livingroom. The large window faces nothing, or at least nothing interesting, just the decaying building across the street. "You know she offered up her parents old house, but I told her you wouldn't want to live in the Abnegation sector."

Evelyn's eyes widen slightly in surprise. "You're right, I don't, but that was… very nice of her to offer," she hedges.

"Yes, it was."

"How are things between you two, if you don't mind me asking?"

"Mending. But if talking about this is just going to lead to a fight, I'd rather not," I say honestly.

"No fighting," she says holding her hands up placatingly. "Just one question and I will never bring it up again."

"Fine," I say defensively.

"Do you stay with her now because of Natalie?" Her face is mask-like, devoid of emotion as she asks.

"I stay with her because I love her. Not because there's no one else available to me, as you accused when I left you to come back here, and not because we have a child together now," I say bluntly.

"Okay," she says simply.

"Okay?" I ask incredulously because normally this would be a prelude to a fight.

She shrugs. "You love her and I just have to be okay with that."

"No, you have to respect my decision," I point out.

"I will."

Her choice of words is not lost on me because she didn't say 'I do', she said 'I will', but I suppose that's part of the process of bridging the distance between us, so for now, I accept it.

"So, George says he needs some help training a police force. You didn't offer?" Evelyn asks, changing the subject to something much safer.

"No. I told you, I'm done with guns."

"That's right, you're using your  _words_  now," she says with a wry smile. "I don't trust politicians, you know."

"You'll trust me because I'm your son," I say. "Anyway, I'm not a politician. Not yet, anyway. Just an assistant."

She walks around the apartment, her fingers dragging across the back of the couch and dancing across the counter of the tiny kitchenette. "Do you know where your father is?"

"Someone told me he left. I didn't ask where he went."

"There's nothing you wanted to say to him? Nothing at all?" she needles.

"No. I'm done living in the past."

She gives me a strange, searching look and then crosses the room and hauls one of her bags up onto the table. She pulls the blue glass statue out and extends it towards me. "I hope you're not so done with it, that you won't accept this."

I remember when she gave it to me the first time, when it was a forbidden object because it didn't do anything obvious. But for years after that it was the symbol of my defiance, and hers.

"When you were gone, this reminded me of how brave you were, always have been. I thought you might like it back. I intended it for you, after all."

I'm surprised at the upwelling of emotion the simple object can still evoke in me, so I don't say anything, not trusting my voice. Instead I smile and nod and accept her gift.

 

 

 

xxxx

The spring air is cold as we walk to Navy Pier, but it feels good, bracing. Like everything else in the city the pier showing signs of change. All the same landmarks are here - the carousel, the Ferris wheel, the park -, but the grass is richly green and neatly trimmed. Before long there will probably be water lapping at the wooden pilings holding the pier up; the Bureau scientists are working hard to restore the lake and rivers of the city.

"Tris didn't need your help today?" Evelyn asks as we enter the grounds.

"There isn't much to help with, to be honest. Natalie won't even remember this so it's just family and a few close friends having a picnic and cake at the park to celebrate."

Honestly, I think we should be throwing the party for Tris, considering she was the one who had to carry and give birth to Natalie. As we cross the green a small knot of people come into view. Even from a distance I can pick out Tris, Natalie resting comfortably on her hip. But Matthew is here too, along with Caleb, Cara, Christina, and most surprisingly Zeke and Shauna. We invited them of course, but I didn't think they'd actually come.

Natalie spots of us first and lets loose an excited shriek. She squirms in Tris' arms like she's trying to launch herself out of them, but settles for toddling across the grass once Tris sets her on her feet. She's in such a hurry to get to me that she trips over her own feet and falls halfway between Tris and I, but before either of us can get to her she's already pushing herself back up, undeterred. I'm just grateful the grass is a soft place for her to land.

Still, I take a few big steps and sweep her up into my arms, surreptitiously checking her over. My pulse doesn't calm until I'm sure that the most damage done are the grass stains now embedded in her tights. "You okay, Baby?" I ask like I'll actually get an answer.

"Ba-ba!" Natalie says excitedly before dissolving into giggles.

"I'll take that as a yes." I press a kiss to her cheek, stilling there for a moment with my eyes closed to breathe her in. She smells like baby powder and strawberry shampoo. When she was born her hair was the palest blonde, but it's slightly darker now, ashy. Her eyes are just the same though; Tris' grey-blue filling up her irises, but ringed in the same deep blue as mine.

"Everything okay?" Tris murmurs as she walks up, one hand resting on Natalie's back and one resting on mine. I know she's not asking about the baby though.

"It's fine," I say, shifting Natalie from one arm to the other so I can take Tris' hand in mine. I walk us all over to where Evelyn is quietly watching us a dozen feet away.

"Hello, Evelyn," Tris says evenly.

"Beatrice," she replies, her tone as brittle as her manner. It would be rude if not for the fact that Evelyn's eyes seem to be riveted to Natalie, leaving little room for social niceties.

"Natalie," I say, giving her a very serious look to hold her attention. She knows this game well since we've been playing it for months. "Can you say 'grandma'?"

"Amma."

"Grand-ma," I say, drawing the word out for her.

"Amma!" she says louder like that will make her mimicry perfect.

I twist us around so that Natalie is looking right at Evelyn when I point to her that. "Grandma," I say again. "That's grandma."

"Amma!"

"Hi, Natalie," Evelyn says, her voice surprisingly like Tris' the first time she said those words; strained and tearful. "Can I… can I hold her?" she asks hopefully, her arms raising slightly in offering.

"She's a little fussy with new people," I warn, and sure enough she does exactly that once Evelyn tries to lift her out of my arms. "Sorry," I say apologetically, pulling her close again.

"It's fine," Evelyn says quickly, reaching out and taking Natalie's hand and bobbing it up and down, coaxing a smile out of them both.

Tris takes a deep breath, drawing herself up next to me. "I was going to take her to feed the ducks, would you like to come with us, Evelyn?"

"I would, thank you," she says formally.

Tris gives me a look as she takes Natalie, a look that reminds me of the conversation we had last night, in bed, when she promised me that she would be if not nice at least civil, if Evelyn behaved herself too.

She carefully sets Natalie on her feet, pointing her towards a flock of ducks that are pecking hopefully at the grass some distance away. "Do you want to go feed the ducks, Natalie?"

"Ucks!" she says before taking off towards them, Tris only a step behind and Evelyn following along uncertainly. I watch them closely for a time, but the most exciting thing that happens in that Tris allows Evelyn to hold the paper bag full of bread pieces we always carry when we come to the park, presumably so that Natalie will be more comfortable with her since she's the one dispensing the treats she's throwing gracelessly towards the birds.

Eventually I wander over to our friends, though my eyes keep cutting back to my mother and Tris. I make small talk with everyone, though it's stilted and desultory with Caleb. Much like Tris and my mother, he and I have never gotten along and probably never will. I still think he's a little coward for letting Tris take his place in the weapon's lab, especially since her threat to shoot him was an empty one.

I save Zeke and Shauna for last. "Hi," I say awkwardly, not quite sure what else to say to them. The last time I saw them was about a week after Natalie was born when they came with Christina to visit Tris and meet the baby.

Zeke claps me on the shoulder, and for a second it's like everything is normal between us. "I can't believe how big your girl is getting," he says. "I can't believe you even have a kid."

"Me either," I laugh, though it's really nothing to laugh about. The fact is Natalie could very easily have been the thing that drove Tris and I apart permanently. It's not that I never wanted kids; I did, in an abstract way, in a theoretical 'someday' kind of way.

But not now, and definitely not when things were as unstable between Tris and I as they were when I came back from my sojourn outside the fence. Things then weren't just bad between us, they were very nearly fatal, threatening to destroy our relationship in a way nothing else had. We had both broke promises - she promised to choose me, and I promised to be her family -, but even knowing we both made mistakes, that we still loved and chose each other despite our failings and our lies, wasn't enough to heal the rift between us.

There was hurt, and guilt, and resentment, and it had a habit of exploding between us with bitter, angry words shouted like volleys of gunfire. It was just as destructive. But we discovered that sex was easy, or at least easier than real intimacy. It could still be rough and angry, more about proving a point or winning an argument, but it could be soft and sweet like an apology too. Most times though it was just a way to be close to each other without wounding one another. It was honest and uncomplicated in a way words couldn't be at the time, though obviously it still had consequences.

When Tris found out she was pregnant she didn't tell me right away, and even when she finally did she made it clear that this baby was her choice, that she didn't have any expectations of it changing my life the way it was going to hers. She knew as well as I did that bringing a child into a relationship where the parents can be cruel and hurtful to each other as often as they're loving and sweet was far less desirable than bringing a child into a home with one parent who was at least stable.

As unprepared as I was to be a parent though, I didn't take her up on the offer. That night I laid in bed with her and we both promised to try harder because we did love and want each other. But that wasn't the only reason I was so immediately enthusiastic about Natalie. It was true that I wanted a family with Tris someday, but it was also true that I knew where Tris wouldn't stay alive for me, she would stay alive for this baby, knew she would do everything to spare this baby the grief she felt at her parents death. I wanted Natalie because it meant I could keep Tris. It was selfish, but I didn't care, not after coming so close to losing Tris so many times.

And for a while we both tried, and it was good. We still used sex as a coping mechanism, but there was talking too, healing. At least until the night Tris heard me admit to Christina that the reason I was so ready to keep the baby was because it would give Tris a reason to stay alive.

I can only imagine what my face must have looked like when she stepped out of the hallway and I realized she'd heard me, but the horror of it passed in a heartbeat to be replaced with pure anger. As soon as Christina scurried out of the line of fire we exploded.

 _So now you know_ , I spat out.

 _What is wrong with you?_  she demanded, her face flushed and hands shaking with anger.

 _What is wrong with_ me _? What is wrong with_ you _that I had to knock you up to get you to value your own life?_  I threw in her face.

 _Get out_ , she hissed at me, clearly wounded.

For the first time in a long time I scared her. She jerked away when the glass that was in my hand shattered violently in the sink. It made something flicker in the eyes I recognized from my mother's and it almost broke me.

 _What is wrong with me that I'm never enough?_  I asked instead, hands gripped so hard at the edge of the counter my knuckles were white. It was probably the most honest thing I've ever said in my life. And the most painful.

It's hard to think about it now, the doubt and distrust I put in Tris' eyes that night, but especially the fear. For a long time after that she was wary around me, and rightfully so, I guess. It didn't really disappear until after Natalie was born, once she was a real person to me, someone who I loved on sight and not just as a means to an end.

"I've got something to show you, actually," Shauna says, pulling me out of my thoughts. She tosses the blanket resting across her legs aside to reveal a scaffolded network of metal rods that brace up her legs to her hips. She smiles and, with a gear-grinding sound, stands.

"Well look at that," I say, smiling. "I'd forgotten how tall you are."

"Caleb and his lab buddies made them for me. Still getting the hang of it, but I might be able to give your toddler a run for her money one day," she teases.

"I'll hold you to that."

"Are you guys ready to eat?" Tris asks, reappearing at my side. Since she doesn't look like she's going to scream or break something I assume that feeding the ducks went peacefully.

We spread out on sheets and blankets, passing stacks of paper plates and plastic utensils between before piling them up with cold fried chicken and a few side dishes though the birthday girl mostly gets macaroni and cheese, and some apple slices. She doesn't mind. And she's delighted when we sing her 'happy birthday', though she tries to grab at the single candle flickering on top of her cake.

Once we finish eating Caleb and Cara cajole Shauna to her feet so they can observe how her braces work 'in the field', and since there's no possible way Natalie is going down for the nap she's due for with all the excitement around her and all the sugar she's just consumed, Tris sets her loose to romp around the park.

With Evelyn safely engrossed in the conversation she's having with Matthew and Christina, I move to sit down next to Zeke. "Thanks for coming today," I say quietly. "I know it's still hard for you."

"It's not about you. Uri would have wanted me to come," he says just as quietly. "He loved Tris like a sister."

I can't deny that the words sting, but if Tris has taught me anything it's that the time it takes to heal is incalculable. "Either way, I'm glad you're here," I offer.

"How's Tris?" he asks after a few minutes silence.

"Better since Natalie. She still has nightmares sometimes, wakes up in a panic thinking she's back in the weapons lab, but I don't know… life damages us, and we can't escape that, but we mend each other too, you know? And Natalie mends her in a way I never could," I say nodding towards where Tris is chasing after our daughter, her eyes bright and awake and burning with a will to live.

"Hm," is all he says, noncommittal.

We lapse into silence again until Tris and Natalie and Shauna come back, faces flushed and hair tangled from the wind that's picking up.

"We should get her home before her good mood runs out," Tris says breathlessly. And it's true that at this point, Natalie is a ticking time bomb primed for an exhaustion induced temper tantrum.

"Yeah, okay," I say, pushing myself to my feet.

It only takes us a few minutes to collect our belongings and we walk together in a loose group to the train station, exchanging hugs and handshakes as we say goodbye. Evelyn hovers in the background. Once they're gone I find myself between Tris and my mother as we walk home. It's probably the safest thing for all of us. I invite her up because it's only late afternoon, but she declines, citing her long trip and busy day. I don't miss Tris' sigh of relief, but I don't comment on it either.

Even though we're on the lower floors and don't have the panoramic views an apartment higher up in the building would afford us, it's still nice. The sunset it painted on the apartment walls when we walk in, the marshy river outside showing a thread of reflected gold; like so many other things it will take time to restore it completely.

More than any other place this feels like home to me. When I moved in all I had was a couch, a table, and a bed. It took Tris getting pregnant for me to invest in anything more than the bare essentials. Even then, it wasn't quite home. Now there are shelves full of pictures and books and knick-knacks. There's always a basket of clean laundry next to couch waited to be folded and Tris is forever shaking her head at the mess of files on my desk. There's a few toys sitting on the coffee table and a few dirty dishes in the sink. It feels lived in, comfortable, loved. It feels like home, and I know, deep down, that without Tris and Natalie it would never feel this way.

"I know it's early, but I think I'm going to give her a bath and put her in her PJ's," Tris says, lifting Natalie out of my arms.

"Probably a good idea," I say to her before turning my attention to Natalie. "You're probably going to pass right out once we put you in bed, aren't you?" I ask, pecking a kiss to her forehead where she's sleepily resting against Tris' shoulder.

They disappear down the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and bathroom and I pick up a report I've got to read about GD rebels in the Fringe. There are still people there who believe another war is the only way to get the change we want. I would rather avoid more violence; I've had enough of that to last a lifetime, and like Tris I still bear the scars of it. There are times when I'm playing with Natalie or tucking her into bed and I remember that my hands are the hands that executed Eric. I'm still haunted by nightmares of Abnegation bodies sprawled across the streets of my old home, and tortured by the guilt that I knew what Dauntless and Erudite were planning and did nothing to stop it.

Today though, I ignore those things as best as I can because this is Natalie's day and I live in a different world now; a world where our daughter will never know what it's like to be selfless,  _or_  brave,  _or_  smart,  _or_  kind,  _or_  honest, one excluding the other. For a long time I regretted the faction symbols on my back, but I finally realized that what I regretted was the lie of the Factions, the divisiveness of them. Natalie will not grow up in a world shaped by them. To her Abnegation and Dauntless and the rest of them will just be funny words and a boring history lesson. What I don't regret though are the virtues of the Factions because we should all strive to be selfless, and brave, and smart, and kind, and honest. We just shouldn't lose our humanity in them. It's a balance, one Tris and I still struggle to keep sometimes, but we're trying, for Natalie and for us.

A half hour later I'm stretched out on the couch still reading the same report when Natalie trudges out to the living room, not at all tempted by the bottle Tris fixes for her and instead climbing right up on the couch and stretching out on my chest. As simple as it is, it reminds me that as much as this feels like a home to me because of Tris and Natalie, it feels the same way to them because of my presence, and knowing that… there aren't words to describe the way it makes me feel.

I curl my free arm around her, pulling her closer. "Happy birthday, Nat," I whisper, kissing her damp hair. She curls her fingers more tightly into the fabric of my shirt and nuzzles her face against my neck.

The rest of the night unfolds as it more or less usually does. Natalie wakes up a few hours later, but only keeps her eyes open long enough to suck down a bottle. She's already asleep as Tris and I put her to bed. She's still sleeping in a crib, but that will change all too soon. We both lean awkwardly over the side and kiss her goodnight, tell her we love her.

"Do you regret coming back?" Tris asks quietly as we take a moment to watch Natalie.

"No, I don't," I say softly, wrapping my arms around her and pulling her back so she's flush with my chest.

"If we didn't have Natalie would you?" she presses.

"No. Where is this coming from?" I ask her sharply. "Did Evelyn-"

"No. It's just with her being back, I thought maybe…" Tris trails off.

"I don't. I could have stayed away, but I never would have been happy with my life like this without you in it," I admit. "But speaking of Natalie… I got you something," I say, fishing in my pocket for the small velvet covered box.

"I don't see what one has to do with the other."

"It's a special day for you too," I say, holding onto the box with one hand and flipping the top open to reveal it's contents with another. In the dim glow from Natalie's nightlight the ring looks even more faded than it should, but Tris still inhales a sharp breath in surprise. "It's old," I say apologetically. "But I wanted to get you something with Natalie's birthstone." It's a simple ring, with tarnished gold and a small, dull emerald, but it's unlike any Faction-inspired jewelry.

"It's beautiful," she whispers. "Thank you."

It takes us a minute to find a finger it fits on - which ends up being her index finger -, but once we do she turns in my arms and kisses me full on the mouth. "I feel bad that I didn't think to get you anything," she says sheepishly.

"You're alive, we have a beautiful daughter, that's enough."

"Still though," she frowns.

"Hey, I wasn't the one who had to endure twenty-two hours of labor," I remind her.

"Well, when you put it that way," she says with a wry smile.

"When I put it that way, I don't think an old ring I found in a junk-store is enough," I quip.

"It's perfect," Tris reassures me before pressing her lips to mine again. This time though she doesn't pull away, and neither do I. The kiss builds in heat and intensity, reminding me that despite the fact that we're parents we're still young and love, that we still crave each other.

I reach down and wrap my arms around Tris, hoisting her up into my arms the same way I did nearly two years ago when I appeared at the apartment she was sharing with Christina one night, jealous, angry, and hurt, but still so much in love with her.

 _I miss you,_  I said with that first tentative kiss there on the threshold.

 _I want you_ , I said when we stumbled down the hallway to her bedroom, locked in the same embrace we are now.

 _I need you_ , I said when our bodies were joined together, though I wasn't ready to accept it myself.

We work in tandem to join our bodies together. I want to tell her that she feels like heaven and hell and death and life, love and hate. I want to tell her that she feels perfect. That she's mine and I'm hers and it doesn't matter how many times we fight or lie or disappoint each other, nothing will ever change that. But now is not the time for words, not spoken ones at least, because the body has its own language; one that renders words hollow, and I speak in it until we're both left sticky and sated, bound together in a mess of limbs and tangled sheets and devotion.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter and the remaining ones will all be written in 3rd person. Also, prepare for angst because there’s a lot of it. If you're feeling chatty you can find me on Tumblr @ BleuWrites

A blast of chilly air hits Tris in the face as she walks out the massive sliding doors that front the city hospital. Winter is coming on again, and already the scents of Fall - of petrichor and rotting leaves and wood smoke - are fading. It's getting darker earlier too, and though it's barely the end of the work day the sky is already the sort of cobalt blue that precedes darkness, the stars weak, hazy pinpricks emerging on the domed canvas of sky stretching above her.

But all Tris can think about is that it's been eight months since the last time she saw Tobias. A lot of events surrounding that are fuzzy, but that isn't. She wishes it was. She wishes she didn't recall with perfectly clarity his barely contained rage and his _I told you once if you senselessly risked your life again you and I were through - I meant it._  She wishes she didn't remember him walking away.

All she feels at it now is a sort of numb horror, like looking at a grotesque tableau so many times it loses it's ability to shock, to steal your breath away with how gruesome it is, how wrong it is. She's not catatonic with grief anymore, has long since passed the point where it took everything just to get out of bed and choke down some food; the numbness is better than that at least.

She cuts away from the crowd, dodging between buildings to get to the train tracks. The trains actually stop now, but Tris still likes to get them Dauntlessly; two blocks away from the stop for the hospital they're going just the right speed to do it. The first time she did this it was like an affirmation, a reminder that despite David's best efforts she was alive, and not only that but capable and strong again. Now she does it because it's one of the few things that makes her happy.

Tris tightens the straps on her backpack and bounces on the balls of her feet as the tracks start to sing with the vibration of the train flying down them before slipping into a slow jog. She puts on a burst of speed as the first cars pass, launching off the gravelly ground, and then for the space of a few heartbeats she's flying, unencumbered by the things that hold her down. Her feet land with a solid thump on the textured metal that makes up the floor of the train.

By the time the train pulls to a stop and the rest of the hospital workers get on she's back to feeling numb because happiness is only ever bright, bursting moments; an effervescence that isn't meant to last longer than that. She tucks herself into a corner, trying to be as small and inconspicuous as possible in an effort to avoid any kind of interaction with these people. It's hard enough to talk and joke and laugh and be normal from nine-to-five; she doesn't have the energy to do it when she's off the clock too.

Luckily, she doesn't have to. She makes it all the way back to the Hancock Building, tantalizingly close to the door of the apartment she shares with Christina before she runs smack into one of her neighbors. His name is Bodhi, and unlike many residents of the building he's not from Dauntless, not even from Chicago, actually.

Tris startles him as she bursts through the stairwell door as he exits the elevator. He's still visibly flustered as he runs a hand through his hair and greets her. "Hey," Tris says back wanely, hoping her tone is enough to stave off any conversation as she silently curses him, herself, and every social convention pounded into her head as a child that have her talking to him at all.

"You startled me," he says as if that wasn't obvious, before falling into step with her as she walks down the hall. "So, Christina said you're working at the hospital now? Training to be a nurse out in the Fringe?" he asks conversationally.

"Mmhm," she hums in assent. "It's more like… a cross between a medic and a social worker, I guess," she says slowly, hands making funny shapes in front of her as she reaches for the right words. "The things they're training us to do… it's not like the nurses who work at the hospital."

"Do you like it so far?" he asks as Tris stops at her door, fishing for her keys in her coat pocket.

"It's better than working as a file clerk at the Hub," she says dryly.

"I think it's… really great… what you're doing," he stutters. "Not many people care about the Fringe. A lot of people think it's better to just let the people there suffer and starve and die," he says quietly, suddenly somber.

"Some people here used to say that about the Factionless," Tris says hotly, surprising herself with the sudden vehemence in her voice; usually everything comes out monotone unless she's playing pretend with her fellow students. "Sorry," she says shyly, apologetically. "It's just… my mother was from the Fringe. But they're people, you know? Just like us, except that fate dealt them a crappy hand. It's wrong not to help them."

His brow furrows in confusion. "I didn't think it worked that way, someone from the outside coming into the city, I mean."

"My Mom was… different," she hedges, but all that does is make curiosity glint in his eyes and before she knows it she's telling him all about Natalie's childhood, how she ended up in the Fringe, how she was rescued by the Bureau, and, eventually, how she was sent to the city to spy on the factions. "She was supposed to join Erudite, but she fell in love with my Dad and that kind of changed her plans. The Bureau wasn't very happy about that," she says with a wry smile.

"No, I guess they wouldn't be," Bodhi chuckles lightly. "Have you spent much time out there, in the Fringe?"

"Yeah, a little. We've been going out there a couple times a week to distribute clothes and canned goods. It would be a lot easier if they trusted us," Tris mutters, looking down at the floor rather than him.

"Can't really blame them, can you?"

"No, I guess not."

"Well I, uh, work with a couple people from the Fringe. We're actually planning on going out tomorrow night. You should come along, talk to them; maybe they'll have some ideas about getting the people out there to trust you," he nervously offers.

Tris' eyes flick back up to him and the intensity of his gaze nearly knocks her sideways. His eyes are very green, rich and saturated; where Will's were the color of celery, Bodhi's are like wet moss. And still, he's watching her, hopeful and expectant. And, abruptly, she realizes she's done this before, stood in a hallway talking to a boy who's looking at her like every word out of her mouth is utterly fascinating; who's looking at her like he's drinking her in now that she's laid parts of herself bare for him to see. She's not sure if it's the memory or the reality in front of her that has her body flushing and shaking with nervous adrenalin.

She swallows thickly before answering. "I'm having dinner with my brother tomorrow night. Sorry. I should get going," she adds, nodding towards her door. "I have a lot of studying to do." Tris barely hears his, "I'll see you later," before she's closing the door behind her and throwing the lock.

She slumps against the door and scrabbles at her scarf like it's the reason she can't breath, but even with it pulled off and held limply in her hands air is still hard to come by. It would be nice if there was some simple explanation for it like asthma or maybe tuberculosis, but it's Tobias and in this moment she can't help thinking it always will be. There might be a day where thoughts of him don't ravage her like a disease, but today is not that day.

It takes her a while to peel herself away from the door, to find the note from Christina telling her not to wait up because she won't be home until late if she comes home at all. She doesn't begrudge Christina her coping mechanisms, but it would be nice to come home to something other than a vacant house because it just reminds her how alone she is, as if she could forget. Tris turns on the radio just so the apartment doesn't feel as empty as it is and makes herself dinner, propping her textbook up on the table as she eats.

She tries to force herself to focus on the words on the page, to make the words mean something and not just slide past her eyes. But it's hard when all she can think about is her upcoming dinner with Caleb because losing her parents and Tobias wasn't a fair exchange at all, and sometimes it really makes her hate him. It's hard to think about Bodhi and how he's probably eating alone too, but that's only because it makes her think about Tobias and how he's handsome and mysterious and broken and all the other things that are catnip to girls, and how he's probably not eating alone because of it.

With a sharp inhale and renewed determination she pushes her bowl of soup away and refocuses on the book in front of her, copying out the text in a last ditch effort to make it stick. She keeps at it until her hand cramps and her eyes hurt and she feels like falling asleep right there at the table. Only then does she go to bed because only then will she actually sleep and not just toss and turn and think of how much better it feels to fall asleep in someone's warm arms instead of cold sheets.

It's only a few hours later when the sounds of doors closing and footsteps and drunken giggling rouse her from sleep. Her mind struggles to make sense of it at first since usually what wakes Tris is her mother's voice and horror movie dreamscape nightmares, but she quickly realizes it's Christina and her Distraction of the Week and if she doesn't get back to sleep this instant she's going to be treated to a soundtrack that two closed doors and a hallway between them won't muffle completely.

Tris scrunches her eyes shut and pulls a pillow over her head, but it doesn't block out the memories she's been repressing for months with feverish devotion. They flash behind her eyes so vividly that she can almost feel Tobias' chest against her back, the cool tips of his fingers and warm palm and rough calluses of his hand gliding up the tender flesh of her inner thigh. It feels like betrayal when she feels herself getting wet.

She kicks the blankets away with an annoyed grunt and pulls on clothes at random, the only unifying factor being that they're warm.  _It wasn't even that good_ , she thinks bitterly.  _Awkward and painful and ironically anti-climactic, but definitely not good._  But maybe time and love and longing have a way of softening the harsh tones of reality because the memories keep coming and all it does is make her throb and clench and ache for how close they were then.

Tris tiptoes out of the apartment like Christina and whoever are going to notice, making her way to the elevator, and eventually the ninety-ninth floor and the ladder and the roof. She wishes she could go further.

 _I'm going to marry you someday_ , Tobias declared with a goofy grin on his face, after. Tris has to hold herself up against the side of the elevator as pain lances through her, steals all the air out of her lungs, as the memory unfurls.  _I don't get a say in it?,_  she teased back, a note of giddy girlishness in her voice that had never been there before. No, it's decided, he said, pecking a kiss to her nose.  _You're stuck with me_.

The elevator dings and the doors slide open and Tris feels like she's stuck in her fear simulation, the water pressing down, drowning the life out of her. And she emerges from the elevator the same way she did the simulation then: desperate and gasping and clawing herself free. She spills out onto the floor, rubbing distractedly at her ring finger because ever since Tobias said those words she's felt a phantom weight banded around it.

The wind whistles through the gaping hole in the ceiling and Tris climbs up the later on shaking limbs, keen to escape. The zip line is still strung up, whipping and snapping in the wind, but she walks around to the other side of the roof, staring at the dual blinking lights affixed to the top of the Hub. It pulses slow and deliberate, like the beating heart from which all life in the city flows.

 _You're not done here, Beatrice_ , Natalie's voice echoes through her consciousness.

"I don't believe you," she whispers to the wind.

She told Tobias once that everyone would get along just fine without her. And she meant it, but watching everyone she loves move on without her with their fulfilling work and family and friends and lovers, just highlights how much life is passing her by and it hurts because she has none of that and she shouldn't be here to see it. And as much as she tries never to think of him, she's sure Tobias has moved on too.

 _He's gone. He's gone, and he's never coming back and it doesn't matter_ , she scolds herself. But that thought is like a top; something that spins out of her control once she sets it in motion because it has been months and he's gone and he's not coming back and he has moved on and it matters.

Tris is sure he's probably got some pretty little thing next to him in bed right now because someone like him is only lonely by choice, not circumstance, and he's got no reason to be anymore. And besides, he left her, and whatever his reasoning was she can't help feeling that the most honest moment she ever shared with Tobias was in Jeanine's lab when she accused him of not loving her like she loved him and it hurts worse for the realization because how could he just leave if he loved her like he claimed?

So yes, he's moved on, she's sure, to a girl with a perfect nose and luscious curves; to a girl with a will to live that burns bright, that puts whatever Tobias used to find in Tris' eyes to shame. To a girl that isn't afraid of intimacy, that probably sheds her clothes with only a hint of alluringly coquettish shyness instead of the nearly crippling insecurity Tris did. To a girl that's making him forget his past and Tris; to a girl he's giving all the things he had promised to her.

The landscape in front of her washes away in a flood of tears, the lights of the Hub bleeding down her face and all she can think is that this is what makes her human and she hates it. Her cheeks are red and roughed from the wind, her tears, the cold by the time her body weeps out all the things that make her soft and leaves her brittle. Anger and bitterness are so much harder to kill than her will to live, and she embraces lover-like because if Tobias can survive, she can too.

When the sunrise slits brightly across the eastern horizon she decides it might be safe to go home. Christina's in the kitchen glowing and disheveled, chugging a glass of water when Tris walks in. "Sorry," she offers, sheepish.

"It's fine," Tris says flatly as she starts pulling off her outerwear.

"So did Bodhi ask you out?"

"How did you know about that?" Tris asks wonderingly.

"He walked to work with me this morning," Christina says with a mischievous smile.

"And he told you he was going to ask me out?"

"No, he spent twenty minutes asking me questions about you," Christina says like Tris is being purposefully obtuse.

"Well, he didn't. He invited me out to dinner with him and some people he works with," Tris says with a shrug.

Christina waves off her comment like it doesn't matter. "He's asking you out," she insists. "He's just trying to do it in a way that won't freak you out." When Tris does nothing but cock an eyebrow at her questioningly Christina sighs and flops down on the couch dramatically. "He asked if you are single and I said yes. But I told him-"

"You told him about-," Tris starts, indignant, but chokes because she hasn't said that name in months and refuses to say it now.

"No! No, I told him your last relationship… ended badly. And that I didn't know if you were ready to date again. And that I'd kick his ass if he hurt you."

"Thanks," Tris says with a small smile, sitting down next to her.

"So, are you going to go out with him?" she asks, enthusiasm making her eyes glint.

"I'm having dinner with Caleb tomorrow."

Christina gives her a strange, searching look. "I think it's… romantic the way Abnegation couples are bound together for life. I think it's romantic the way your parents decided their love for each other was more important than anything else when they were our age. But that's not reality, Tris. Most people have to date a lot of people to find someone they love," she says gently.

Tris wants to ask her if she'd feel the same way if Will was still alive, but that would be monstrously cruel. Instead she says, "so what do you do when you find that person and they don't want you?"

"You keep looking until you find the person who loves you back," she says simply. "You should go out with Bodhi. Maybe he's not the person you love, or the person who loves you back, but maybe he can make you happy, or at least make you forget to be so sad."

"Is that what you're doing?" Tris asks hesitantly, trying desperately not to offend the one friend she has left.

"Something like that," Christina says with a sad smile. "You should go out with Bodhi," she reiterates. "Or at least consider it. You have dinner with Caleb every Saturday night anyway; you should take one night for yourself."

They're quiet for a few minutes, staring out the picture window at the sunrise before Christina rises and stretches and lets loose a huge yawn before declaring that she's going to bed, thankful that it's the weekend and she can sleep the day away.

* * *

The trip from St. Louis to Chicago should take a day, if that. But there's been an ice storm that has made the already dilapidated roads down right dangerous; even in a truck with chains strapped around the tires it's slow going.

Tobias' fingers are cold where they're coiled around the steering wheel, the heater doing a pathetic job of actually keeping him warm. He'd stop and dig for the fleece lined gloves shoved in some pocket of his duffle bag, but he's too distracted by his thoughts to be bothered. Scenes flash across his brain manically, the same as when he used to flip around between the Dauntless security cameras when he was bored.

Seeing Evelyn through the crack in the bathroom door as she crouched between the wall and the toilet when Tobias was five, her hand extended pleadingly towards Marcus. It was the first time saw his father beat her.

Evelyn, again, a thin sheen of sweat on her face but wearing a smile no amount of labor pains could wipe away. He'd crawled on the bed next to her when Marcus went to get the midwife and she had pulled him close and whispered that this baby was going to love him as much as she did, that pretty soon he'd have a sister or brother who would follow him around and look at him like he hung the moon and stars. It was the last time he saw his mother for nearly a decade.

Marcus, red faced and furious and terrifying, pulling him out of bed and taking a belt to his back because Tobias couldn't stop crying for his mother. It was the first of many such beatings and though his brain seems intent on replaying all of them Tobias skips through them, the images shifting and blurring together until he lands on something better.

Placing the blue glass statue on his desk, striding out his room, out his father's house, out of Abnegation, confidant, defiant, dauntless, even though he was nothing more than a scared child. Still, he looked Marcus right in the eye when he pulled the knife across his hand and let his blood sizzle onto the Dauntless coals.

His first days at Dauntless. Amar's gloating smile when the stiff Max had dismissed out of hand came out of his fear landscape, weak, shaking, and pouring sweat, but making Dauntless history and earning a new nick-name. Fighting Eric, and the dark places it took him when he let loose sixteen years of rage; how much he enjoyed hurting him; how much that terrified him after the fact.

Tori tattooing him with Dauntless flames, shame and mortification and arousal at her hands on him making him hard as she did it. It was the first time he'd been touched by a woman and something that had always picked at the back of brain every time he was near her even though it never happened again.

Zeke; the awful, awkward 'dates' he let his friend cajole him into. Dauntless girls who were too much. Brash and bold and arrogant and altogether just too much. His friend always matched him up with the wrong kind of girls, hoping opposites would attract, or maybe just hoping they'd steamroll him into finally losing his v-card; either way it didn't work.

Tris. Always, inevitably, Tris. No matter what he's thinking about his thoughts always end up here, in a perverse 'all roads lead home' kind of way, but this will be the last time, he vows so he tries to make it good. His fingers flowing down her spine like he was chasing raindrops. The way her in his arms was always a comfort to him even when it was supposed to be the other way around. Small, strong, demanding. His Tris. His Girl. It would be easier to forget her if he didn't dream about her every night.

Leaving Chicago was the right thing, at the time. He couldn't live in the city knowing she was there, somewhere, spectral and haunting. He would have flinched at every blonde head he saw. But going away wasn't enough to train his heart to unlove her. Maybe that's just the way it's supposed to be with your first love, but he can't imagine a second, and he ditched Peter in Milwaukee months ago for telling him to fuck a few other girls and get over it. Not that Tobias didn't take his advice, or try to anyway, eventually.

He'd spent months traveling all over the midwest, but no matter how many months and miles stretched between him and home, he still felt an instinctive tug towards Chicago, towards her, like his heart was a constantly spinning compass aligning itself with the things he loved best instead of true north. And maybe it's a consequence of that, that left him so unimpressed with other cities, so unable to find a place to start over, to be happy in. And really, that was all he wanted, to be happy again; it was as simple as it was impossible.

It was a combination of Johanna's letter burning a hole in his pocket, desperation and determination and drinks and petite blonde, and before he knew it he had her pushed up against the crumbling brick wall of the bar. The kisses had a bit more teeth to them than he was used to, but closing his eyes and pretending this girl was his girl got him halfway there with her hand palming him through his jeans.

Of course moaning Tris' name killed the mood pretty quickly.

There was a lot of yelling after that because he was pretty sure that neither of them were drunk enough to somehow pass off that name as her name or something else entirely so he didn't try, just stood there and let her yell her fill and storm off. He watched the moon set and sun rise and decided that it was time to go home no matter how vehemently Evelyn opposed his plan.

It wasn't that being gone wasn't working for him, it was that Tris was the one who turned her back on him, who threw the promise of their future in his face. He just had to lock her out of his heart and his mind and the distance between them would be exactly the same no matter what city he was in. At least in Chicago he could make something of his life instead of running away from it.

* * *

A lot has changed in Chicago since the downfall of the Bureau of Genetic Welfare. The city was only ever meant to sustain the population of the factions, and now that it's an open city, it's struggling to accommodate the influx of people from other parts of the midwest looking for a place that lives up to the promise of an utopia; a place of safety, a place of peace and plenty.

While "safety" might be the easiest part of that equation, "plenty" is not. There are housing shortages as aged buildings are renovated to be fit for human habitation again. Food and fuel are rationed; fresh fruits, vegetables, and meat are priced at a premium, though rice, beans, and powdered milk remain cheap. And as the department of public works scrambles to update the infrastructure it's not uncommon to turn on the tap only for it to sputter dryly and rolling blackouts to sweep through the city.

It's the latter that greets Tris when she gets home from another long day at the hospital. The Hancock Building has a generator, but it only puts out enough power to make the emergency lights glow sodium-yellow and keep one of the elevators running.

Tris dodges between the line of people queuing up in the lobby for it like their legs don't work and takes the stairs instead. She's halfway up the first flight when she hears the door bang and a voice calling out to her. When she leans over the railing Bodhi is taking the stairs two at a time to catch her up. They've shared a few conversations over the last few weeks, but he's never so overtly - and literally - pursued her. It's a struggle to stay put and let herself be caught, but she does.

" _So_ ," he says, drawing the word out teasingly as they troop up the stairs, "I was wondering what it is you have against the elevators since you're always taking the stairs. Or do you just not trust the generators?"

Tris could lie a little and say 'yes' and leave it at that, but if he's really as interested in her as Christina claims he's going to find out sooner or later, so she tells him the truth. "I was shot when everything… happened... at the Bureau," she says, watching him out of the corner of her eye. "It took me a long time to recover, but being able to do this reminds me that I couldn't, once, and not to take it for granted."

He's quiet for a moment as they reach a landing and turn onto the next flight of stairs. "You're a pretty tough girl," he says approvingly. "It's kind of intimidating though."

"How so?"

He shrugs a little. "Most men want to be a little heroic, running to the rescue of pretty girls. You're no 'damsel in distress' though. I like it. It's intimidating, but I like it."

Tris can't help startling a little at that revelation. She always thought Tobias' need to protect her had more to do with his childhood than an X-chromosome quirk. And she can't help reevaluating her choices in light of this new piece of information, wondering if she'd been a little weaker if Tobias would still love her; if she could love herself if she was.

"I guess you have to be tough if you want to go into the Fringe though," Bodhi muses.

"No, you just have to care," Tris says with a frown, more thinking out loud than anything else. "Caring makes you strong enough to do things you don't think you can."

"Strong enough to face GD rebels?" he asks, curious.

"It wouldn't be the first time. Besides, most of the people in the Fringe are just desperate, not violent," Tris says a little defensively.

"I know. I meant it when I said that I think you wanting to help them is great. I'm just sizing myself up, I guess. I don't know if I'd be brave enough not to piss myself if someone pulled a gun on me," he chuckles, self-deprecating.

"Well, if it makes you feel any better I've known a lot of people who've had a gun pointed at them and none of them have ever wet their pants," Tris offers with a wry smile.

"I does, thank you. So have you thought anymore about my offer of dinner?" he asks as he holds the door open for her once they reach their floor. "You can even bring your brother along if you want," Bodhi says enticingly.

"Ugh… no. I love Caleb, but…,"

"But, he's your brother," he supplies. "I get that. I love my brothers, but they're not my favourite people in the world."

"How many do you have?"

"Two, and a sister. They're still in Omaha, except Amelia, she lives in Des Moines. You didn't answer my question," he points out.

"I have thought about it," she says quietly, looking at anything but the boy in front of her. "And it's really nice of you to-"

"I don't like where this is going," Bodhi says with a nervous smile.

"I'm not turning you down," Tris says hastily, hoping that if she can just say the words quickly she won't chicken out.

"So, you're saying yes?" he asks, beaming.

"Yes, I'm saying yes," Tris says with a forced smile.

"Great!" he says a little too loudly, a little too enthusiastically, and visibly cringes at how he sounds. They hastily work out the details and though Bodhi looks like he's walking on sunshine when they say goodnight Tris is more subdued. No matter what Christina says Tris still feels like she's using him, still feels guilty for it because he's nice and she likes him, but she's not really interested in him in the same way he is her.

Tris shuffles through her apartment, reaching out blindly for the flashlight her and Christina keep by the door for times like these. The beam of light bounces around the room at awkward angles as she pulls off her gloves and coat and scarf. She's got it tucked into the crook of her elbow as she rifles through the kitchen drawers looking for a pack of matches to light the stove with when there's a knock at the door. She groans to herself, certain that it's Bodhi, probably back to chivalrously offer her candles or something.

 _He's just being nice. He's just being good neighbor_. She reminds herself as she makes her way to the door.  _He's just_  - And the world stops right there, because it's not Bodhi and his green eyes staring back at her.

She's vaguely aware of the sound of the flashlight clattering to the floor, of the noise of shock that eeks up her throat; of her mouth hanging open and her eyes going wide. And when Tobias takes a step across the threshold she takes one back. One step forward, one step back. It could be a metaphor for their relationship.

Tris jolts into the wall, and he traps her in with his arms. The deep blue of his eyes swims closer and closer threatening to swallow her whole. She doesn't realize how hard she's shaking until his hand comes up to cradle her cheek and the ground feels like it's going to slip out from under her. He moves closer still, lowering his lips to hers, and all she can do is stand there and let him.

Tobias' lips are soft and questioning, his eyes searching when he pulls away for a second. She doesn't know what he's looking for, or what he finds, but he dives back in deeper, the plush warmth of his mouth and the taste of him on her tongue makes something in her sigh and release; makes the darkness coiled inside of her unfurl like smoke and curl through her limbs, sinuous, transforming her into something new. This is the release she was chasing in the Weapons Lab that day, she's certain of it.

Tris pulls Tobias closer; drowns, dies, and is reborn with a gasping sob that begs forgiveness. Her heart thumps wet and heavy in her chest, and she swears she can feel the rush of blood each pump pushes through her veins, breathing life into the flesh that had been her prison. For the first time in so long she feels alive, free.

She shakes for a different reason as his hands slip under the hem of her shirt, slide up her side high enough that his thumbs brush the sensitive underside of her breasts before retreating down, over her hips to her thighs, like he's trying to commit the landscape of her body to his memory by touch alone. Tobias hoists her up, pins her between his chest and the wall, his heart and hers beating out messages in morse code, one for the other.

There are other parts of their anatomy sending out signals too when he presses against the tight, hot space at the apex of her thighs.

The moan he licks off her lips is all the permission he needs to carry her through the apartment. Tris throws an arm out to scrabble at the wall, telling him enough to know which bedroom is hers. He stumbles over something and they crash together onto the bed, Tris scooting up and kicking the blankets down at the same time, Tobias chasing after her. They fumble at each other's clothes because this is still a dance they don't know all the steps to.

He pushes her shirt up and kisses the spot over her like it's her lips, like he's so hungry for her and this is the only way to sate it. She arches into him because she wants him to consume her, or maybe she wants to consume him, keep him safe inside her so he can never leave again. She grabs his hair and binds them together when his mouth seeks out the sensitive tips of her breasts, and knows this is what she needed from him all along; him not being afraid of scaring her.

One of his hands grips at her hip and the other stitches together, palms pressed in prayer when he slides inside of her. He doesn't stop to ask if he's okay, if he's hurting her, if it's too much; if he's allowed to touch and taste and take. Her back bows up under him and she breathes out in a sharp hiss because it hurts. Even if it's not the first time it's been a long time and she'll bleed in the morning, but it's worth it because it's him and her and them, together.

And unlike their first-last time Tobias doesn't try to soothe away her pain with gentle words and tender lips. He draws out slow and lets it fade on it's own until Tris' hips move in time with his own, pulling him so deep inside of her she doesn't know where he stops and she begins. And after months of the desolation of abandonment, it's exquisite and addicting how close he is and she'll never get enough of it, of him.

Their breath comes out in soft wet pants, tying them in lovers knots as they move together as one. It's rapturous and she thinks she finally understands why people writhe and speak in tongues in the throes of religious ecstasy because she's never felt closer to God than here and now with Tobias inside her. And maybe that's the trick, that God isn't without but within and all those years spent projecting outward served as a divide.

And all the things that were competing for her attention the last time - the pain, the self-consciousness of being naked, of two bodies reaching for something and coming up empty - melt away because all that matters is here in her arms and whatever they were looking for then, they've found now.

Tobias' hand glides down her sweat-slick thigh and hitches it higher around his waist, opening her body up to somehow allow him deeper. The shift strings her body up tight, like everything inside of her is being coiled in the space between her legs, ready to snap. And it does. She comes with a shuddering, breathy moan and a heat that spills out from her center and travels to the farthest parts of her body. It would be frightening how intense it is if it didn't feel so good. It leaves her limp and liquid and only hazily aware that Tobias' thrusts are erratic before his body stutters and he moans hotly against her neck.

He doesn't move for a long time and she doesn't want him to. He goes soft inside her, and nuzzles sweetly and languidly at her neck like he's just as repentant as she is. Tobias rests her forehead against hers though when he says, "tell me you love me," his voice a tortured rasp that reminds her there's still a lot of awful, complicated things between them.

"I love you," she whispers in the space inbetween them, sealing the vow with a kiss.

Tobias rolls off her and Tris feels something sticky and sinful seep out in his absence. She follows him, propping up on her arm. "Tobias, I…," she starts, but the words bottleneck somewhere between her brain and her mouth and that's all that comes out.

"Not tonight," he says, slipping a hand around the back of her neck and pulling her down so that she rests on his chest. "Just… not tonight," he repeats, fitting his lips to hers so she can't object.

So they don't talk, but they do speak because the body has it's own language; speaks in a way hollow words can't. Tris falls asleep around dawn, feeling sore and sticky and exhausted, but loved again. And for the first time in a long time she doesn't have nightmares, Tobias' body fighting them off just by virtue of being curled around hers.

Besides, the real nightmare doesn't start until she wakes up, hours later. Alone.


	3. Chapter 3

The only light filtering into Tobias' apartment is the red tint of a blood moon. It makes Tris think of Revelations. Of pale horses and dark riders. Of war and terror and death. Looking out the picture window above his couch she half expects the stars to fall from the sky as the fig tree sheds its fruit in winter; for a great quake to split the land, and the world to collapse in on itself.

Three hundred years without a blood moon and now this one. She's sure it doesn't bode well.

xxxx

When Tobias slips in through the door he moves like liquid, like shadows, his limbs long and sinuous.

"You shouldn't leave your door unlocked. It's not safe anymore," Tris says neutrally, not taking her eyes away from the moon or moving from where she's leaning up against the arm of the couch.

She can't see him, but she can feel his shock. "I'm not pregnant if that's what you were wondering." Her voice is just as devoid of emotion as it was a minute ago.

"I wasn't," Tobias says defensively.

"Just because someone desires you doesn't mean they value you, right?" It's a rhetorical question, really, punctuated with a vicious lift of her brow and something selfless and steely and purely Abnegation in her eyes.

His face goes hard and masklike and she knows she's hit her mark.

It takes him a minute to shrug off her gaze and amble to the fridge to pull out a beer. He leans against the counter, an affected cool at her sudden appearance.

"Where have you been hiding?"

"Where were you tonight?" she shoots back. She'll be damned if she's giving up anything to him tonight, even something as innocuous as this. It's been two weeks since he stole away in the night like a coward, a week since he started turning up at her apartment, at Caleb's, at anyone he could think of that she had a connection to looking for her, all while missing the obvious. He even went to Zeke, and she knows that had to cost him, but she's content to let him stew in uncertainty indefinitely.

"My neighbor, Edmund's. He's a widower. Sometimes we drink together," he shrugs.

"It would be easier for you if I died, wouldn't it?"

Tobias doesn't justify her taunt with an answer.

"I think it would be easier for me too, sometimes," she says quietly, more to herself than him, but it's the most honest thing she's said since he's walked in the door.

He takes a long pull of his beer and eyes her up and down critically, eyes snagging on the dress that shows between the unbuttoned flaps of her coat and the boots that lace all the way up to her knees. "How was your date?" he asks harshly.

"Nice," she says, cheeks pinking, but it's so dark he can't see that. "Bodhi introduced me to his friends. We went to Navy Pier and ate at all the food carts and passed around a bottle. It was fun." She makes it sound like an indictment of all the things he never did, which it is.

"And yet you didn't go home with him," he says scathingly, trying to regain some power in this differential.

"No, not tonight. But he won't have to stake out the hospital trying to catch me when I leave work either. Unlike you." Her words are a verbal bitch-slap, knocking him back into line.

She saw Tobias, skulking and chain-smoking in the disused doorway of the building across the street almost every night. And she seriously considered confronting him there, but she was afraid she'd just scream and hit him and she wants to  _break_  him and she can't do that in public.

"So what was so important that you had to see me, if not to make sure you didn't accidentally knock me up?" she asks flippantly.

"I wanted to apologize -"

"- You're doing a great job of it."

He scowls at her sarcasm. "I wanted to apologize -"

" - To make yourself feel better, or to make me feel better?"

He pinches his lips together in a thin, tight line.

"Because I don't see either one of those things happening," she adds.

"Then why are you here?" he grits out.

She rises to her feet and glides across the floor, predatory. Her footsteps are syrup slow, but certainly determined and she doesn't stop until she's close enough to breathe in the liquor he's sweating out. He stiffens at her proximity and she smiles at him, all sharp white teeth before trailing a hand down his arm to the bottle he has in his. It only takes a little force to pry it free.

"I was curious," Tris says, and takes a deep drink, her eyes never leaving his. Even with the dim light she's close enough to see his pupils dilate; with fear or longing, she doesn't care which.

"You always hated when I was curious. At the Bureau? When we first walked in? I was curious, and you hated it. How many times did you replay that in your head to convince yourself we were always wrong for each other?" she challenges.

Tobias does nothing but scowl at her, and her lips twist up in amusement. "You always hated that I was so perceptive too."

She leans even closer, setting the empty bottle on the counter behind him, completely ignoring the length of it that would take her farther away from him. Turnabout's fair play and if he can show up and fuck her, she can fuck with him as much as she wants, she thinks. "Do you still want to apologize?"

Tobias stares at her, long and lingering and loaded, before his arms snap around her like a trap. His lips are angry and insistent against her own, and his, "no," comes out like a growl. He almost lifts her off her feet in his haste to get her to the couch, and her toes scramble for traction as he walks them backward. He flips them around when they reach it, collapsing, pulling her on top of him so her knees bookend his hips.

Her coat is still on but she doesn't stop his hands slipping under the skirt of her dress, dragging up her thighs to knead at her hips. When she drops down to grind against him he's already hard and straining against the tight confines of his jeans. The friction leaves them both breathless, and they work in tandem, rolling against each other the same way their tongues twist around the other's.

When Tobias' fingers start moving towards the apex of her thighs, start twitching with the desire to split her leggings and bury himself inside her, she draws his bottom lip between her teeth, biting down just hard enough to make him hurt but not bleed. She pulls back slow enough to get his attention away from the wet space between her legs and back on her.

"I hate you." She says it like she said 'I love you', before.

People always forget how cruel she can be.

* * *

Tris likes chicken salad sandwiches. The contrast between the crunchy celery and savory meat and the creamy dressing covering it is supremely satisfying for some reason. People like to complain about hospital food, but the offerings from the cafeteria are delicious, she thinks.

And if the way Christina is devouring her tuna fish sandwich is any indication, she thinks so too. Tris suspects it's the only thing keeping questions from pouring out her best friend's Candor mouth at the moment. So she enjoys her sandwich and braces for the moment when the interrogation is going to begin, which isn't until they're both nibbling idly at the crusts and most of the tables around them are empty.

The first questions out of Christina's mouth are about Tris' date with Bodhi; if he was nice, if she had fun, if there was any hand holding or goodnight kisses. There weren't, but Christina seems to approve of that, and spends a few minutes talking Bodhi up, declaring that his reserve is in deference to her troubled romantic history.

Once that topic is exhausted an uncomfortable silence settles over them. Christina picks at the ragged edge of the formica covering the table, refusing to meet Tris' eyes when she asks if she used the address she gave her the last time they had lunch. She doesn't mention Tobias by name.

"Yes," Tris says, her cheeks flushing, though she doesn't quite know why.

"Did he tell you what he wanted?"

Tris isn't sure if she asking if he told her what he wanted when he showed up at their apartment the first time, or the subsequent times when he was looking for her. She decides to answer the latter. "To apologize, I think."

"Did he?"

Tris scoffs. "I didn't really give him the chance. There isn't anything he can say-," she cuts off with a huff, glaring at the wall.

"Good," Christina says viciously. "So, what happened?"

"Well I didn't taser him like you did," Tris says, smirking. Tris would be lying if she said that didn't make her happy in a vindictive sort of way.

"I told him to stop banging on the door. He didn't listen. Besides, he only laid on the floor twitching for a little while," she says with a smirk.

"Amar promised me he won't come back. He said he was only there to pick up some things Amar had salvaged from the Pire for him. He didn't want him to come to the Hancock, but couldn't tell him why, so just tried to get him out of there before he could run into you."

"That worked well," Tris mutters.

"I trust Amar: if he says Fo-,  _he_ , won't come back, he won't," Christina stutters. "So you can come home, right? Please? It's really lonely without you," she pleads, reaching out for Tris' hand.

"I just can't, Chris. Walking into that room… it's like walking into a crime scene. It's easier being at my parents house than it is there." And that says a lot, so maybe it's not such a surprise when Christina doesn't push the issue.

"So," Christina says, drawing the word out, long and teasing, trying to lighten the mood. "Are you going to go out with Bodhi again?"

Tris shakes her head, ducking her chin and refusing to meet Christina's eye.

"Why not?"

"I don't know, Christina," she whines like a petulant child because she really doesn't want to get into this either.

"He was nice, wasn't he?" she reaffirms.

"Yes."

"And you had fun, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"Then why not go out again? I don't think he'll hold you to the Third Date Rule, if that's what you're worried about."

Tris chokes on her sip of iced tea. "I'll keep that in mind," Tris says, coughing.

"He likes you, Tris."

"Yeah, I got that when he asked me out on a date."

"No, I mean he  _likes you_ , likes you. He wouldn't be treating you like this if he didn't."

"That's why," Tris says more harshly than she intended.

"Just… think about it okay?" Christina wheedles.

"Yeah, okay," she conceeds.

"Good," Christina nods. "You know after all the chaos of the war I thought I'd like working in the housing assignment office. But, God, it's  _so_  boring," she groans, pushing herself to her feet. "Anyway, back to the grindstone."

* * *

"Are you opposed to do something slightly illegal?" Bodhi asks, his voice staticy; the telephone lines still aren't working right. Tris presses the phone to her hear more forcefully, trying to both block out the din of the hospital around her and hear Bodhi over the hiss and pop of the bad connection.

"I don't know. I guess it depends on how illegal 'slightly illegal' is," Tris hedges.

"Breaking and entering?"

"As long as I'm not going to be exposed to some stupid serum-"

"Nothing like that, I promise," Bodhi quickly interjects. "Just wear something you don't mind getting dirty, and maybe bring along a couple of those face masks they use at the hospital, for the dust."

The masks are easy enough to sneak, not that anyone would really care. She still feels a little twinge of guilt pocketing them, though it's nothing like the tidal wave of guilt she felt stealing a dose of emergency contraceptive after she and Tobias had unprotected sex.

The Bureau is still obsessed with procreation, to the point that emergency contraceptives are supposed to be issued to sexual assault victims only. But the doctors and hospital administrators are purposefully lax about keeping an accurate inventory of the stuff. They're the ones who have to deal with the aftereffects of botched abortions, after all.

More than once she's heard the emergency room doctors railing against the Bureau, screaming about how making condoms expensive and hard find, how making other types of contraceptives illegal, only makes people seek out unsafe alternatives, sometimes at the expense of their lives, and always at a cost to their mental and physical health.

Tris wasn't worried about getting caught or getting in trouble stealing it, but she felt guilty taking the little blister-pack of pills because she knew how lucky she was and that didn't sit right with her selflessness.

She steals two rolls of condoms just to spite the Bureau and it's stupid rules. She'll give them to Christina, she decides, give them to anyone who wants them, like candy or party favors.

xxxx

Tris bounces on the balls of her feet, trying to keep warm as she waits for Bodhi at the old, empty fountain in Grant Park. It's midway between her work and his, and therefore an ideal place to meet.

Despite Christina's encouragement, she's not still not sure she should be here. He's nice enough, sure, but there's no…  _spark…_  no desire there for her. She hasn't thought about how his lips might taste or how his hands might feel. She has thought about the way he makes her feel though: happy. And she has been in pain for so long that it's hard to give up anything that makes it go away, even for a little while, even when she's conflicted about it.

"Hey," Bodhi greets her, startling her.

"You're getting stealthy," she comments, accepting his hug hesitantly.

"I'm trying really hard to impress you," he says very seriously. "I had this whole thing worked out where we'd scale the building and break a skylight and repel into it on ropes. It was very Dauntless. But then I remembered something."

"And what's that?" Tris asks, playing along.

"I have a key," he says, pulling it from his pocket with a dramatic flourish.

Tris can't help it, she laughs. "So how did you get the key?"

"I might have borrowed it from work without telling my supervisor. What he doesn't know won't hurt him, right?" he says lightly, but it still makes Tris' chest constrict because the same could be said of her and him.

"As long as we don't get caught," she says with a forced smile.

They walk across the rest of the park and then back to Navy Pier, skirting the gathering crowds and sneaking behind a big building, imposing with it's time-worn romanesque architecture. Tris keeps a lookout in the narrow alley they find themselves in as Bodhi finesses the key into the lock, and nearly dislocates his shoulder forcing the door open. They both cringe at the noise it makes.

Since it doesn't seem to alert anyone to their presence they slip inside. Bodhi and Tris trade flashlights and masks and find themselves in a dark, dusty foyer. Their flashlights search around until they land on the lintel supporting a second floor balcony above them where the words "Field Museum" are engraved. Below it hangs a tattered banner proclaiming, "From dinosaurs to DNA!" in big, bold letters.

"Ever seen a real, live dinosaur?" Bodhi teases.

"No. And I hope I don't see one tonight, either."

Her response makes him laugh, the rich, joyous sound bouncing off the marble that covers every surface of the room they're in. He unexpectedly reaches out, eclipsing her small hand in his, and though she's not completely comfortable with the contact, she doesn't pull away.

They wander through the exhibits, the dioramas of neolithic man and ancient, wild beasts looking sinister in the narrow beams of their flashlights. They linger for a long time in the hall full of dinosaur skeletons. Tris only knows them from textbooks, something which didn't prepare her for the sheer size of them.

The tyrannosaurus and velociraptors would look silly with their short, stubby arms if not for the mouthful of sharp teeth. The brontosaurus makes Tris think of her father though, it's long, gentle lines reminding her of the set of French Curves she found in his desk one day while she was searching for a ruler.

They tour the whole of human history - according to the long dead museum curators -, and finally find themselves in an exhibit about the first 'successful' experiments in genetic manipulation the Bureau conducted.

Tris dusts off one of the information plaques. Her hand comes away black from the dust and grime and she can't help thinking it's a metaphor for everything the Bureau has done over the years. "It reads like propaganda," she mutters, voice stuck somewhere between disgust and disbelief. She'd like to think people, even back then, could see right through this, but she also grew up in a society where no one was curious enough to scale a chainlink fence and find out what was on the other side, so.

"It was propaganda," Bodhi scoffs. "People used to freak out about genetically modified foods, you think they were excited about someone dicking around with their DNA? They had to sell it somehow."

They wander back through the museum, through rooms full of precious gems and rare butterflies, until they find themselves in an exhibit about the ecology of the great lakes region. It's as good a place as any to have dinner. It's nothing fancy; deviled ham on white bread that sticks to the top of Tris' mouth like glue, an apple and an orange for each of them.

Bodhi's apologetic smile is more of a grimace when he hands it to her.

"It's not the food that counts, it's the company," Tris says lightly.

She's completely unprepared for it when he swoops in and kisses her, and though her first instinct it to reel back, she forces herself to at least hold her ground; to at least give his lips a chance to make her forget.

xxxx

Tobias throws himself into work. He gets to the office before anyone else and only leaves because Johanna forces him to. He still stuffs his messenger bag full of files every night, spreads them out on the coffee table in what passes for his living room. He doesn't sit on the couch.

It's just him and a brown bottle of liquor sitting on the floor because sometimes,  _most_  times, work isn't enough to keep from seeing Tris every time he closes his eyes. The knock at the door startles him. He freezes, heart in his throat for a second before he stumbles to his feet.

It could be his neighbor, Edmund, looking for a late night drink.

Somehow, Tobias knows it's not.

Tris doesn't give him a chance to say anything, just slaps her hand over his mouth when he opens the door and gives him a look that says enough. When she pulls her hand away she leaves the lingering taste of dust and oranges; the latter only gets stronger when her hand is replaced with her lips and tongue.

She's here to torture him again, he knows, and he'll blame his complicity in it on the alcohol again, too.

He tries to steer her towards the bedroom, but she seems determined to go to the couch. She lost her shoes somewhere between there and the front door and once Tobias falls heavily onto the couch she shimmies out of her jeans. It would be presumptuous except for the fact that he's forcing his down too. When the condom lands in his lap he makes an effort not to think of where it came from or why she has it in the first place.

Tris does allow him the control of pulling her down to straddle him - big warm hands tugging at the back of her knees; to position her, to slide into her. He bunches her shirt up under her armpits and latches onto a nipple. The moan she makes when he worries it with his teeth makes his cock throb; it's still only the third time he's had sex and every noise she makes does it for him, but especially those ones.

She's louder this time; not like like the stiff, Abnegation girl she was the first time, and not shell-shocked by his sudden reappearance like she was last time. It scares him for a moment to see just how fiercely and deeply and intensely she loves because she loves like someone who has nothing to lose. She doesn't, and he doesn't either, but he still doesn't want to think about that, so instead he focuses on the symphony of moans and sighs and whines; of the sticky, wet noises their bodies make together.

Her nails dig into the hollows above his collarbones and she gets louder. One of his hands slip up - to cradle her cheek, to cup the back of her neck and pull her down for a kiss, he's not sure -, and somehow Tris ends up with couple of her fingers in his mouth. He babbles at the feel of her tongue swirling around them, making him think of other things she could be doing with it.

It seems to be what she needs though because her pace falters and her back arches and her body seizes and the fingers in her mouth are the only things keeping her from screaming. It feels so good for him too that he's not even a second behind, panting open-mouthed against her breasts as the world goes white behind his eyes.

She's still panting when she kisses him again, but it's soft and slow, remorseful, and not at all urgent like it was a minute or an hour or a lifetime ago when she stepped through his door. She pulls away and rests her forehead against his, and for a while they stay that way; eyes closed and silently, mutually, acknowledging how fucked up this and they are.

The last thing Tobias feels before Tris pulls away is the goosebumps covering her sides, the sheen of sweat from their lovemaking having left her cold. She starts pulling on her clothes and he feels like an idiot, sitting there with his limp dicked and completely used. He pulls the condom off and pants back on, roughly, pissed off at her and himself and this whole thing.

"You're never going to ask why, are you?" It's not the question he intends to ask, but it's the one that comes out.

"I don't need to," she says.

She doesn't need to because the same thing that brought him to her that night, brought her to him tonight, and he thinks he hates her a little for knowing that; for not being able to lie that it was anything other than hurt and anger, and a need to be the other's only and punish them for it at the same time.

"Were you out with him again, tonight?" That's the question he meant to ask. He doesn't even try to mask the jealousy roiling in his tone.

"Were you drinking again tonight?" she retorts, picking up the half empty bottle from the floor and setting it on the table. "Or do you drink every night?"

He wants to ask her if she fucks someone every night, but he doesn't want to know the answer so he doesn't say anything.

"I'm not stupid," she says, pulling on her boots.

"Neither am I," he snaps back. "So why are you here?"

"Bodhi kissed me, and I felt bad for using him." She stands up straight and pulls on her coat and looks right at him as she says, "I don't feel bad for using you," and walks out.

She's barely slammed the door shut when he throws the bottle at it across the room, shattering the glass and gouging deep scars in the door.

* * *

Whatever Tris is doing with Tobias, it's not what she wants. It's not what he wants either, and it's long since past the point where it makes her showing up at his door and him taking her to bed okay. It's a pyrrhic victory now, and she sees the evidence of it every time she looks in the mirror, but five dates with Bodhi and they've all ended with her in Tobias' bed.

And she's long since past the point where she can hide the effects from the people around her, too. She's lost weight, her cheekbones even more prominent than before since her stomach is always tied in nervous nauseas knots and most of the time the idea of eating is revolting. She's got bags under her eyes from spending more nights tossing and turning and chasing sleep than actually sleeping. And she can't seem to hold a conversation with anyone that doesn't end in her yelling at them, and then collapsing into tears the second she's alone; she hasn't seen her brother in two weeks for just that reason.

She's vowed more than once that it's 'the last time', but that never stops her from going back; the thing she craves the most slowly killing her. It's small consolation that Tobias looks just as rough as she does.

But when they're in bed together, everything else fades. It's the one place where they have a truce, the one place where their past doesn't matter and they can just love each other. He touches her so reverently and passionately it almost makes her weep every time his skin touches hers. It speaks more than words do, which is a good thing because when they talk they yell and she's reminded that she'll never have  _nothing else is okay, but we are_ , ever again.

And on days like today - long, hard days spent in the Fringe -, more than anything she wants that. She wants to be able to crawl into his bed and hide from the world in his arms, and not just now and then, but every night. She wants to be weak, just for a little while because being The Strong One wears you down until there's nothing soft and vulnerable and delicate left, and those things are too often taken for granted.

She could probably call Bodhi, have him come over or whatever it is she's supposed to do when she wants to tell him that she wants more. Except that she doesn't. Bodhi is distraction, not comfort, and she's already using him too much as it is.

So she walks home from the hospital after they've unloaded the trucks that took them to the Fringe and back, hoping it will make her feel better or at least sleep easier, though she knows that won't happen.

She took a blood sample from an old woman today who looked like she was wearing every piece of clothing she owns just to stay warm, including an old, cheap nightgown billowing out around her legs from under a half dozen sweaters and a coat that rats had eaten more holes into then Tris could 's those patients that haunt Tris when she closes her eyes - the sick, the elderly, the slowly dying. They've never known a full belly, or a warm bed on a cold night. And it never feels like enough, giving them food and blankets and medicine. The children are worse, though; she sees her mother every in every one of their faces.

It's a wonder, she thinks, that half of them don't die of exposure every winter; they live in shacks - just plywood and corrugated steel -, if they're lucky, and they burn whatever they can get their hands on to keep warm, but all that does is give them horrible, hacking coughs from the poor ventilation.

Angry tears cut painful tracks in her cheeks by the time she reaches the Abnegation section of the city. Snow flurries are whipping around the street lights, dancing like flames in the sodium yellow glow, and she fumbles with her keys, nearly dropping them in the half-light.

"I'm surprised you came back here," a voice out of the dark says, startling her.

"It was a happier place for me than it was for you," she tries to say evenly, but there's still a little hitch to her voice, and she surreptitiously wipes her nose as Tobias walks out of the shadows. "What are you doing here?" she asks, stealing a peek at him.

"Leveling the playing field."

She takes a deep, shuddering breath. "Can we not do this tonight?" There's a hint of plea in her voice, but she doesn't care if it's surrender; doesn't even care that what she's asking him is far more consideration than she's shown him these last few weeks. "It's been a crap day, and I don't want to do this right now," she grits out.

Tris can almost feel the conflict inside of him; the need to push her until she breaks just to see if he can, and the desire to make better, fighting for dominance. He shifts his weight back and forth, tipping between his toes and his heels before he finally walks away.

* * *

Tobias flops heavily onto his back, his breath coming in short, ragged pants. All it took was the sound of Tris' voice floating up that stairwell for his beautiful, naive declarations that he just had to lock her out of his heart and mind to collapse into dust.

Sure it had been anger and jealousy and hurt that night, but every night since then? No, he knows now like he knew on the train to Amity the night of simulation attack that she would always be it for him.

And he doesn't know if that makes him hate himself or her more, but watching her roll off the bed away from him and start pulling on her clothes makes her the more convenient target.

"Why are you still seeing him?" Tobias says, voice just as bitter at the smoke from his post-coital cigarette.

"It's nice… feeling wanted," she murmurs.

"I want you."

"In your bed," she says, glaring at him over her shoulder like all of this is his fault.

"He wants you in his bed," Tobias points out.

"He wants me other places, too."

Her words cut deep and he can't help lashing out, wouldn't even if he could. "He can afford to think like that. I've already learned the hard way not to think about a future with you."

"You're such an asshole," Tris hisses, the expletive filling awkward and illicit on her tongue, but satisfying despite, or maybe because, of that.

She stomps out of the bedroom and he tracks her footsteps to the front door and then back again. "Don't act like I'm the one who left, because I'm not!" she yells, flinging something hard and heavy at him that shatters satisfyingly against the wall. "I was laying in a hospital bed, barely alive,  _and you left me there!_  Took off with Evelyn because no matter what she does you can forgive her, but not me."

"Leave my mother out of his," he snaps.

"See!" she points at him like it proves her point. "Evelyn faked her death, left you with Marcus, and then when she finds her back into your life she betrays you, and you treat her like she can walk on water, like she can do nothing wrong."

"As opposed to your obsessive need to be a martyr? Explain to me, please, why you just had to take Caleb's place in the weapon's lab that day?" he asks viciously.

"Because he's my brother, and-"

"-And it looks like I'm not the only person who will forgive my family no matter how awful they were."

For a moment she looks like she's been slapped. "I was supposed to be your family too," she says lowly, her voice devoid of heat, but full of venom.

"So was I, but that didn't stop you throwing away our future, did it?"

xxxx

There's a temporary ban in Chicago for the sale of intoxicating substances. Tobias snorts into his drink as the bartender hints that alcohol isn't the only thing for sale, if the price is right. She's an older Dauntless woman, the tentacles of some sea creature flowing out of the ragged edge of her shirtsleeves and curling around her fingers like rings. Tobias didn't have anything to do with her before, doesn't even remember her from around the Pire.

It doesn't matter as long as she keeps serving him drinks. He's been keeping a barstool warm for the last hour and half, enjoying something that tastes like orange juice and paint varnish. It really doesn't do anything to improve his mood, though it might be giving him an ulcer.

Bodhi and his friends (and their girlfriends) are occupying a couple of tables further into the club, right by the stage. If not for the happenstance of a shared elevator and an eavesdropped conversation Tobias wouldn't know he'd be here tonight; wouldn't know he's waiting for Tris.

The more Tobias drinks the more he wants to saunter over and tell Bodhi that after his last date with Tris she ended up on all fours on  _his_  bed, moaning  _his_  name as she came. Tobias wants to tell him that after a quick nap she was half hanging off the bed and crying out in pleasure so loudly Tobias was sure his neighbors were going to complain as he made her fall apart again.

He wants Bodhi to throw a punch. He wants it more than liquor and narcotics and probably even Tris, but he doesn't make a move from his seat. Because he and Bodhi are not rivals. Because if anything Tobias wants Tris to be the one give Bodhi up, not vice-versa. Tobias wants Tris to choose him, even if he doesn't want her anymore.

The hairs on the back of his neck stand up when Tris enters the room. She pushes her way through the gathering crowd, a mere few feet away from Tobias, though she doesn't notice him. He watches as she hugs Bodhi, greets the others, and shucks her coat. He watches as she grimaces taking a sip of Bodhi's drink and vehemently shaking her head. Bodhi must find her fucking adorable, Tobias thinks scathingly, because he pecks a kiss to her temple, all affectionate amusement and rushes to get her a glass of uncontaminated orange juice.

Not long after that two guys take the stage and Tobias can't help thinking it's a good thing they're musicians because that's the only way they're going to get laid when they start thumping out a bass-heavy blues rock that ratchets the sexual tension in the room up to eleven.

Bodhi drags a reluctant Tris out onto the dance floor, but her reluctance doesn't last long, and three songs in Tobias catches sight of her swaying with him. There's nothing chaste about it. Tobias nearly shatters the glass in his hand, his grip is so tight.

When he sees her slip away to the bathrooms, her face flushed and sweaty, he follows. She stumbles out a few minutes later and nearly falls over at the sight of Tobias leaning against the wall. He doesn't give her the chance to say anything, just pins her against the door to the ladies' room and nips his way up her neck to her ear to whisper, "I'll see you soon, yeah?" wetly against the shell of her ear.

Four hours later when he's still alone in his apartment he makes himself sick thinking of who she must be occupying herself with tonight.

* * *

"So, basically what you're saying is that Bodhi went down on you like it was his job."

"Oh my God, Christina," Tris groans, her face burning up with embarrassment.

"What?" she asks innocently.

"Do you have to be so crass," Tris splutters.

"If I wanted to be crass I would have said something a lot worse," Christina replies, a knowing smile tilting up her lips.

"Please stop," Tris begs her.

"Fine. Be that way, but just so you know, most girls would marry a guy like that."

"I can't see him anymore," Tris says at complete odds with Christina's statement.

"Why?"

"Because I'm using him, and that's not fair to him. Or to me. And the longer this goes on, the worse it's going to be," Tris adds like an afterthought.

"Suit yourself. But if he's your rebound, you could do a lot worse."

"He's not my anything, that's why I feel so bad about it."

* * *

Sewing has never been Tris' strong suit, even less so when it's human flesh she's piecing together and not strips of grey cotton. But here she sits, needle in one hand, a child's wrist in the other. Her stomach roils unpleasantly, but she steels herself. It's not the first time she's stitched someone up, just the first time she's done it unsupervised. She can do this.

The little girl can't be more than nine years old and she looks at Tris with wide, scared eyes before asking, in a stuttering, halting voice if it's going to hurt.

"No. That blueberry flavored soda you drank makes it not hurt. You might feel me tugging a little, but it will just feel weird, okay?" Tris tries to say brightly, if such a thing is possible. "I'm just going to make three little stitches and then it will be all done."

The girl whines in the back of her throat when Tris pierces her skin with with needle, but doesn't try to pull her hand away. There's an L-shaped cut on the fleshy part of her thumb and Tris asks how she got it, as much to distract herself as her patient.

"My dad brought me home a kitten and he tried to hide in the closet and I reached in to grab him, but there's these old shelves and I cut myself," she says in a rush.

Two stitches down and Tris can no longer see the gray muscles under her skin every time the girls fingers twitch. It does wonders for her queasyness.

"All done," Tris announces, dabbing the cut with antibiotic ointment and covering it with a large square bandaid.

Once the girl and her parents are gone Tris strips out of her latex gloves and rips the mask from her face.

"You look like you're about to faint," he boss, Jon, says.

He's a big guy, a mountain of a man, really; very nearly six and a half feet tall, with a broad, barrel chest. If Tris didn't know any better she'd be intimidated by his size alone, but she's never met a more kind hearted, gentle person.

After she's done washing her hands he grabs her by her shoulders and looks at her critically. "You're not looking so hot, Tris."

"Well, thanks," she says sarcastically, hoping that will get him to drop the subject.

"I want you to go down to the lab before lunch, have them run a blood panel on you. You might have picked up something in the Fringe the last time we were there."

"I'm fine, really," she protests, but he's not having any of it.

"Humor me," he says in a tone that brokers no argument.

xxxx

The note in Tris' hospital mailbox at the end of the day is ominous. It's a simple, "please see me after your shift," from Jon, but she knows he wouldn't have left it there is the blood tests didn't show something. She really hopes she doesn't end up in quarantine. There's a few people up there now, guests of the hospital indefinitely until they can be cured. Or die. Whichever comes first.

Her hands are shaking when she knocks on Jon's door and she has to swallow back what little food is in her stomach when he tells her to come in. She sits down on the chair in front of his desk like it might wrap around her, take her prisoner.

"So… got your blood test back," Jon says, a pair of reading glasses perched on the end of his nose. "Did you know you're pregnant?"

"I can't be," Tris says stupidly, the words flying out of her mouth before she's even thought about them.

"Well, the blood tests don't lie."

"No," she says firmly. "I can't be. I haven't… I took emergency contraceptive. So. I can't be."

Jon sets the file to the side and leans back in his chair. "They don't always work, Tris," he says gently, calmly.

"Well it should have worked," she says stubbornly, still refusing to accept that this is happening to her. "I took it just like the directions on the package say, and before the seventy-two hour time limit."

Jon shrugs. "Maybe that wasn't the time you got pregnant. Even a tiny tear in a condom - one so small no one would notice - is enough. But the EC… depending on where you were in your cycle, it could be as low as seventy-five percent effective."

Tris just sits there, too shell-shocked to move or speak for a long time. Finally, she whispers, "I can't be pregnant. I can't, Jon," tears trickling down her cheeks.

Jon rounds the desk and crouches down in front of her, offering her a box of tissues. "It's going to be okay, Tris. And if you really can't have this baby, well, there are still options," he says gently. "But I want you to promise me, that if that's your choice, you'll come to me. I don't want to see you in the emergency room bleeding out or in septic shock, like so many other girls, okay?"

"Okay," Tris sniffles.

"Promise me."

"I promise."

He kisses the space between her brows the way her dad would if he was still alive, and that's all it takes for the flood gates to open. She ends up drenching his shirt in her tears before she can hiccup her way to something that resembles calm.

"Why don't you take a few days off and sort things out," he suggests as he helps her into her coat.

"Alright," she says, numb.

"And if you need anything -  _anything_ , Tris - you can call me or Melissa, day or night."

"Thanks," Tris says, her voice shuddering. She's always liked Jon's wife, and the offer makes her feel less alone, even if she doubts she'll take him up on it.

For the first time since she could, Tris forgoes jumping on the train and boards it like a normal person, too wrapped up in her own thoughts to do anything but that.

She's in a daze as she makes her way home, and stays that way well into the night. She watches the moon traverse the sky, one hand on her stomach as she weighs her options. She doesn't have a clear answer by the time the sun comes up because she knows what she wants and she knows what she should do and the two are mutually exclusive.

* * *

Without a fear landscape Tobias has to find other ways to be masochistic; that's the only explanation he can come up with for seeking out Tris after three weeks of not seeing her.

The wind is sharp and cold and he hunches his shoulders against it, though it doesn't make much difference. The streets of Abnegation are deserted, but behind the sheer curtains covering the picture windows in row after row of identical houses, he can see the warm glow of fires burning brightly.

He bangs ferociously on Tris' door, as much to demand her attention as to get out of the storm. As soon as the doorknob twists open he pushes his way inside.

"What are you doing here, Tobias?" Tris asks, her voice tired and annoyed as she forces the door closed against the wind.

She's in a pair of grey sweatpants pushed up to her calves and a long-sleeved black t-shirt, her hair coming loose from a messy ponytail. Tobias doesn't care; it just makes her easier to undress.

He swoops in to claim her lips, but she pushes him away roughly, telling him that he needs to leave as she walks back to the couch in front of the fireplace.

"Why? Because you're fucking that dickbag now?" he seethes.

"No, because I'm pregnant," she says flatly. "And for the record, I haven't seen him since the last time I saw you."

"Is it his?" The words come out so fast Tobias doesn't have time to think about them.

If looks could kill he'd be dead. "No, it's yours," Tris says coldly.

And just like she did when she found out, for a while, he just stands there in shocked silence, mouth hanging open catching flies.

"You said you weren't," he says when he finally finds his voice again.

"I was wrong."

He walks slowly, carefully around the couch and sits down, joining her in staring at the fire like it's got all the answers he's looking for.

"How long have you know?"

"About a week."

"What… ah… what are you going to do?"

"I'm keeping her," Tris says very quietly, more to herself than him.

"It's a girl?"

"I don't know, maybe. It's just when I think about it, I think it's a girl."

"And you're sure? You're sure you're pregnant?"

Tris leans forward and flips open a spiral notebook and pulls out an ultrasound pictures and hands it to him. "I'm sure."

Tobias can't make heads or tails of the picture in his hands, so he just sits there with it held loosely between his fingers.

"This is my choice, Tobias. I don't expect you to… to be involved, I guess. I know you don't want this, not right now, and definitely not with me. And I think I can love her enough for both of us," Tris smiles, though it's watery and weak.

"Okay."

They lapse back into silence, the sun going down the storm growing more fierce as they sit there. Finally, after a long time, Tobias reaches out tentatively like he's afraid Tris might break his hand off. But she doesn't, just stiffens a little at the first touch of his fingers to her abdomen. It doesn't feel any different than the last time he touched her, but it is, and it changes everything.

"What if I wanted to be involved?" he whispers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I know there's going to be some confusion about this, but Tris definitely got pregnant that first time. For the sake of drama I had the emergency contraceptive fail, though they're actually extremely reliable if used correctly.
> 
> Anyway, only one more chapter to go.


End file.
